


all things soft and beautiful and bright

by langmaor



Category: Senjou no Valkyria | Valkyria Chronicles
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, a small mention of Magari, hoo boy... the story where welkin actually Gives A Shit, not really that dark imho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langmaor/pseuds/langmaor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His sister was dead. Or... maybe not? That was a nightmare, wasn't it? She was fine. At their house back in Bruhl, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	all things soft and beautiful and bright

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Madeline Miller's 'The Song of Achilles'

Welkin could never truly believe it.  
  
Isara would never be dead to him, not as long as sparks of her still seemed to cling to and affect his life so tangibly.  
  
She had been a constant in his life. When both their fathers had left them, she had stayed, always observant, always there to offer a kind word. When he had decided to leave for university, she had supported him, allayed his fears and sent him off with a smile. When they were conscripted into the army, she had always lightened his workload, gotten him to bed on time, kept him fed.  
  
For someone whose very presence made his life what it was, she just couldn't be dead. Not like this. Not before him.  
  
He stared blankly at his hand, mechanically signing through the pile of reports and documents on his table. This was work. It was something he could do, and exhaust himself doing. If he dozed off while doing something like this, Isara would surely be there, nudging him awake, directing him to his bed, right?  
  
Paradoxically, the thought only sharpened his focus on the task at hand. If he really fell asleep doing this kind of work and woke up only to a hard desk, he knew it would destroy him.  
  
So he continued. He worked on everything there was to work with far past nightfall, and when he had exhausted that he searched for more.

The thought of sleep was terrifying.

* * *

He didn't know how many days it had been. He supposed several days had gone by since his awful nightmare of the death. He busied himself with work, and when there was no more to be done he read up on tanks and guns and engineering. Isara had so many of those books in her room. For some reason they were in his room now, delivered by Alicia, taken from Isara's room. Why?

He took to drinking a blend of ragnite powder with milk. Coffee, they called it. He knew it made him feel awake again, so he drank whenever he felt his eyelids get heavy. He noticed the worried looks his squad members gave him. Some were pitiful, some were uncomfortable. Why?

His sheets hadn't been disturbed for so long now.

_Why?_

* * *

 He was still not counting the days, and forgoing sleep as best as he could. He worked on being a good squad leader, he smiled at his squad, asked them about their problems, and their worried looks got rarer and rarer. Isara had taken her vacation quite a while ago, hadn't she? He envied her, cozy in Bruhl while he slaved away here. Of course, he'd write to her.

  
He took to the field less and less, since for one thing despite Kreis' help the Edelweiss just wasn't the Edelweiss without Isara in it. For another, he didn't want to drag the rest of the squad down if his body gave way during an important mission.

  
He was being a responsible squad leader, he told himself. He wasn't dragging anyone down with his problems. Or so that would have been, until the one day he handed his best friend Faldio a book to glance through and felt his knees buckle and his vision go dark.

  
When he came to he remembered the cold, absolute terror that pierced him.

  
He had slept, and risen, and there was no Isara nearby.

* * *

"She's _dead_ , you idiot!"  
  
He glanced to his right and left, trying to find something to hold his attention. Anything other than the certainty in Faldio's voice, the pity on his face.  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
He knew being lieutenant was a hard job, he didn't expect Faldio to vent its frustrations on him. Surely that was rather an off-colour joke.

"You blacked out," Faldio gritted out, his iron grip leaving imprints, "from exhaustion due to lack of sleep. You didn't rest for _eight whole days._ What were you _thinking,_ Welkin?"

 _Nothing,_ he wanted to say. _I wasn't counting the days anyway._

"You fool," the squad one leader continued, "why are you doing this to yourself? You haven't spoken to anyone about your sister's death. It's like you're _ignoring_ it. Is that it, is that what you think?"

"Isara's not dead," he laughed out. He meant to laugh, because there was no way she could be dead, no way she would leave him without a family, but what came out sounded more of a choked, desperate attempt at it.

"Then who did we bury, Welkin? Who was the song for?"

"Stop this," he whispered. Stop what?

"No. Not until you learn to move on. You can't keep doing this to yourself, Isara wouldn't want this."

He took a deep breath. It was like being stabbed from the inside with pointy little icicles, all while being plunged head first into freezing waters with no warning at all.

"Come on," Faldio tugged at his arm, "we're going. To visit her grave."

* * *

He remembered dimly the events after that. Remembered wetting his best friend's shirt with his tears and the raw, liquid pain that spilled out through his eyes. Remembered letting go of the regret, the love, the warmth.

It was like a part of him had died, and rested with her. Maybe it was meant to be like that; maybe she was such a significant part of him he would never truly be whole again without her, and her absence would always make itself known in the form of the gaping hole in his heart.

But that wasn't a bad thing. It showed how much she meant to him. And all he had to do was fill it back up, if not with one person's love for him then with the affection of many.

He did remember how light he felt after that.

* * *

Years passed, the war died down, and he finally took up teaching. He moved to a different part of the country, simply for the sake of a new experience, and was all the better for it.

The memories of Isara were painful at times, and not in a way he could entirely keep to himself; he would never forget the tears that had trailed down his face when Magari had wished him a happy birthday, and he would never be able to stop himself from feeling despondent on Isara's own birthday.

But there were good memories too, those that made him a better person, those that lightened his heart, and those that gave him a good laugh. And he felt as if the tradeoff was more than worth it.

Isara was not here to live it with him, but Welkin knew she was watching him live his life, and that was why he aspired to live it to the fullest.

In her name.

**Author's Note:**

> there were two reasons this baby was conceived.  
> 1\. my absolute rage at the fact that canon welkin seemed to pretty much not care about isara, that fucktard,  
> 2\. me thinking about how magari and isara look so alike, surely it would affect Soulless Welkin a little??
> 
> also i did lowkey get my otp welkin/faldio out there didn't i haha


End file.
